Curiosity

A probe, a self-contained scientific laboratory, the survival of the United States' Space Program.

Images are already flowing back to NASA from the successful landing of Curiosity on the Mars surface. A seemingly insignificant fact, full of the mundane reality that everything went right. What is lost in that understanding is that decades of research, millions of hours of work and all the hopes of an entire team filled the Curiosity with dread and trembling awe.

I have personally noticed a growing apathy towards the beauty of what we do well. We have outstretched our hands to brush the eternal, and we have no recognition of it.

Yes, I believe the Olympics are wonderful, fun, and important.

I believe also that Curiosity is a far more valuable, informative and important success story than Michael Phelps.

So today will go unmarked for many people in this world, to say nothing of this nation. Not by me, however. Today I celebrate. Today I redouble my support, with joy unsilenced.

I am proud that we as a nation achieved something so challenging, so necessary. We have fulfilled another piece of the dream that began when first we emerged from darkness to look up into the night sky and spread stretching fingers, attempting to know what was beyond us all. With all the sincerity I have, I hope for us that we continue to reach and explore what is beyond us -- for this is how we better us all.